The Aggadah of Genesis: In Conflict With Science?

That pretty much confirms my suspicions that you really have no idea of what flexibility is allowed - and more importantly not allowed by aggadic interpretation. You certainly do not understand that a basic introduction ot that was absolutely required for sensible discussionBut really you failed right from the start: If that was your intention you defeated yourself in the OP by startign with "interpretation" which were far too wild and far-fetched.r

An old rabbinic technique. We'd call it shock value these days. Start with the wild to get their attention and then bring it back center. Sadly, it doesn't work with Gentiles, especially on forums devoted to thumping and bashing. I didn't even get out of the gate before being mauled. That's why I wanted to set forth more information about my bias and the technique, but AdminPD suggested I just jump into the topic cold. I guess I can see why now. I had intended to bring it back to a "how did these ancient Nomads come up with this story?" and then demonstrate its development and the infleunces of animistic observations right on up through the influences of Tribalistic ethnocentrism, but oh well. Everyone made their bias and agenda apparent right from the get-go. This stuff can't be handled in the soundbite format everyone in our fast-food culutre has become accustomed to. If it's not delivered neatly wrapped and boxed in a Happy Meal with a free plastic toy inside, then nobody has time for it. Best to keep those war lines drawn in the sand and cave to the polarization that's been created by some very clever social engineering. I don't know why I even expected more from this forum. Think what you like. Their your thoughts. You have to live with them. :heavy sigh:Edited by smadewell, : No reason given.Edited by smadewell, : No reason given.

But it didn't work with old Rabbis either. That is one reason they developed a technique that allowed them to laugh at themselves. Again with the thumping and bashing. Do yourself a mitzvah, try reading the replies.Take the time to actually read some of the threads on here and you might even find that many of the points such as how different tales developed have been discussed. A lot of the early cosmology made sense when you look at the experience of the folk of the era. Fountains of the Deep? You dig down and guess what, you find water. Waters above the firmament? It rained.Try starting with a simple "How did these nomads come up with this story" and see how it goes. We all have ideas and would certainly like to hear yours. But to try to stretch what was written to cover stuff like Dark Energy or Dark Matter is simply silly.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

I object to that. You made poor word choices like "sacred" and I attempted to clarify.You can get a good discussion here but the condescending attitude won't fly very high.
(Hint: assume that people do know what words mean, and let them ask if they don't. Don't just assume that they don't.)You got off on the wrong foot. You screwed up, so fix it. Don't be just another drive-by blowhard.If your attitude is that "it's not even worth the effort" then your efforts are going to go unrewarded in the real world as well as here.

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Oh please. You didn't even try to "bring it back to the centre". Instead you tried to defend the wild claims and when that didn't fly you decided to run away.And that really seems to eb the whole of your real complaint. People didn't accept your wild claims as fact. The rest is just an excuse to justify running away without even trying for a serious discussion.If you had actually tried for a serious discussion you could have had one. Don't blame others if your rhetorical strategy backfires.

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jar: But it didn't work with old Rabbis either. That is one reason they developed a technique that allowed them to laugh at themselves.

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You've said that more than once now. Are you alluding to the use of aggadah to give a little "time out" when Yeshiva debates got too heated? Oh well.... Doesn't really matter. You're right. Rabbinic techniques don't work outside that community. Assimilation is a bitch.

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Ringo: You got off on the wrong foot. You screwed up, so fix it. Don't be just another drive-by blowhard.

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Been through this too many times on too many different forums. I can see the handwriting on the wall. Too damn many eggshells in both camps. If a word like "Sacred" is enough to trip people's trigger and start the alarm bells to ringing and cause the defenses to go on line with the subsequent "Halt, who goes there?" challenge, then that tells me this place is a war zone. Since I belong to neither camp in this debate ... that puts me smack in the middle of the Dead Man's Zone. No thanks.... Been there one too many times. Y'all rock on without me.

Again I object. You're the only one here who is being defensive.I asked a few simple questions to try to clarify your position, for myself and possibly for some others. You came out guns-blazing as if nobody has a right to question you. It can be but this thread has been a tea party. Neither do I (at least I won't admit to it ). There's an old Yiddish saying about heat and kitchens.... Unless you're robbing the cradle, you're just a pup. I've "been there" more times than you've had hot dinners. Difference is, I don't scare easily. I dunno. I think we might have to shut down the site....But seriously, in case I've been too subtle for you, I'm trying to talk you into staying. You seem to be fairly bright. You might have something to contribute.(Even if you have to evolve some Kevlar skin.)

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I'm going to echo Ringo here and ask you to stick around and debate your points. The big thing I find with this site is that you have quite a large concentration of real scientists here and in science when you are trying to get across a specific point, the definitions are EVERYTHING.There have been uncountable discussions here that have gone completely off track because the exact definitions of words being used is unclear. I think this is why Ringo was trying trying to clear up your definition of the word 'sacred'.I'd love to see arachnophilia get involved in this topic and hear his interpretations of the hebrew you are using as well. Nothing better then a good ol translation debate Anyways, I hope you stick around. Just keep in mind that there are posters that have tried to warp and twist every little facet of text to mean whatever they want and you are battling their legacy to some extent. Stick to your guns and debate the important points that you want to make.Good luck!

Hello again smadewell,May I echo the sentiments of the previous two posters and ask you to keep the thread open, and also let me back into the fold? I've kept quiet since you didn't respond to my last post, but I think that the argument about whether an over-stretched interpretation retains any meaning is a valid one.For the record, I am not a fundie-basher (I'm a believer myself, as my first post should have shown) nor a rocket scientist, though I admit to being old enough to have used a slide rule. I'll also apologise for my mis-use of the word "special" which seems to have set you off. I hope I've clarified that a bit in my last post.

That's old.

What's a slide rule. Is that one of those Religious laws that one interprets to suit themselves?

Okay, let's have it your way gang. Allow me to cater to the collective impatience. Allow me to now put the cart before the horse.Imagine for a moment that you are a simple Nomad sitting under the night sky out in the middle of the desert, okay? In the morning, you intend to travel through the desert and head toward the river and its Oasis by the shore, okay? Imagine yourself musing about how your world and mankind came into being, okay?You observe that there's a dark star strewn sky above and that there's an abundance of desert sand below, which makes the world seem formless and empty. The heavens above and the earth below. Are you with me so far?A gentle wind blows in from the west; brooding, as it were, upon all you behold. In the morning, before sunrise, a glow dispels the darkness of night and you head toward the river. Still with me so far?Before sunrise clouds form on the horizon and obscure the sun and you know that the rains will come and bring life to the desert. Soon the sky is clouded over and the waters above bring their rain to the desert below. As you approach the river you begin to see planet life appear. First, small ground hugging planets, which grow in size as you progress and then you see in the distance trees.As you come to the river the clouds clear and the sun and moon are now visible in the sky. You bend down to drink from the river and you notice swarms of living creatures in the waters and insects winging above these waters and the dry land. Then you see a lizard eating an insect near the edge of the waters and on the opposite bank you notice a large croc, emerge from the waters to bask in the sun.Then you see birds and various mammals. As you walk down the riverside you see off in the distance the walls of a garden and you know that mankind is near. Then you ponder, "I know from whence I came, but where am I going and what's my purpose in life?"That's pretty much a run down of the "order of appearance" and the "general pecking order" of life that any Nomadic herdsman of the Fertile Crescent Region could have arrived at and spun a cosmology around.This order also happens to jive with what science tells us about what came before what (i.e., what lesser life forms gave rise to more complex life forms). The Genesis text isn't a scientific textbook and the ancient Hebrew that it was written in didn't have the words to express itself scientifically. Because of this, the words are vague enough and primitive enough that one could, if one wanted to (and PaulK would allowed them to), assign these Hebrew words with translations that totally jive with what science says about evolution, yet without the need to move way beyond the very "essence" of these primitive Hebrew words.So, what would be the purpose of this desert Nomad's aggadhic cosmology? What's the message? What's the punch-line? What's the moral of the story?Lesson 1. The meaning of life is the continuance of life; ergo, be fruitful and plenish the Earth.Lesson 2. Want to take dominion over the Earth and its creatures? Then study it and them before hand! What king or general doesn't first send out spies to gather intelligence information before he opens up a can of whoop-ass on his enemy or, perchance, discovers via this intelligence gathering that there's no need to open up said can of whoop-ass. (Cf. Luke 14:31-32).Need a more religious pill to swallow? Want to know more about the POWERS (ELOHIM) that formed the Cosmos? Then study that which has been formed! Why? Because as Paul once said, "For the invisible things of Him from the formation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are formed, (even) His eternal power (aidios dunamis) and Godhead (i.e., Divine nature)" - (Romans 1:20).Oh dear me.... I just turned off all the Bible Bashers by quoting something that Paul had to say. Shame on me! Psst! Paul would not have put his own writings on the same level as the TaNaK!Lesson 3. Want to be a good steward over the Patrimony (i.e., the Cosmos)...? Then obtain the knowledge of "good and evil" and know what is good for you and the Cosmos in which you live and learn what is harmful (i.e., evil). How does one obtain this knowledge? By obedience to a contrived code of ethical behavior or by doing that which is harmful (i.e., evil) to ourselves and the environment? Maybe it would be better to stick to a contrived code of ethical conduct, no? Even Humanism has contrived ethical standards! How 'bout a simple philosophy like ... reverence for life? How does that grab you?That's the aggadah of Genesis in a nutshell. Pretty simple, huh? You'd think that a story with such basic and elementary lessons to teach . people would get a freaking clue. Sadly, the world is filled with people who'd rather thump and bash each other, than pay attention to the lessons that one can learn from this "Reader's Digest Condensed Book" version of the history of the Cosmos. Okay, now you guys can rip me a new one and tell me just how dead wrong I am. I just can't break it down any easier than this.Edited by smadewell, :

You're still making the mistake of telling us what you believe without offering any reason why we should believe it.

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This order also happens to jive with what science tells us about what came before what (i.e., what lesser life forms gave rise to more complex life forms).

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You say that, but the order you give isn't the one in Genesis 1.For instance, in Genesis 1 birds and sea life are created on the 5th day. The insects and the crocodile and the mammals are created on the 6th day. And of course, this is against the scientific account, where insects and many land animals appear before birds.And in fact your story makes little sense. Your nomad would have to see the sea and then plants and only then notice the sun, moon and stars. Is that really likely ?

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The Genesis text isn't a scientific textbook and the ancient Hebrew that it was written in didn't have the words to express itself scientifically.

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Or because it was never intended to express a scientific view. Why assume that it was ?

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Because of this, the words are vague enough and primitive enough that one could, if one wanted to (and PaulK would allowed them to), assign these Hebrew words with translations that totally jive with what science says about evolution, yet without the need to move way beyond the very "essence" of these primitive Hebrew words.

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Of course I'm not saying that it is totally forbidden, only that it must be justified beyond arguing that if you take the word out of context and really stretch the meaning you could take it as referring to some modern scientific concept. But that is the standard of argument you offered. Edited by AdminPD, : Fixed quote codes

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PaulK: Oh please. You didn't even try to "bring it back to the centre". Instead you tried to defend the wild claims and when that didn't fly you decided to run away.

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I just love it when people try to prove just how damn psychic they are. I'm going to put your name in the running for the Sylvia Browne Award for Psychic Excellence.Why don't you just stop presuming to know what my intentions are and let me finish my presentation for a change, eh? Edited by smadewell, : No reason given.Edited by AdminPD, : Fixed smilie code